Topple (2020)
Sofia Karim
ARB, MA (Hons) Arch, Dip Arch
Sofia Karim has practiced architecture for over 20 years at studios including Norman Foster’s in London and Peter Eisenman’s in New York.
Her practice combines architecture, visual art, activism and writing.
She explores architecture as a language of struggle and resistance, and re-examines its ideals of silence, truth, beauty and transcendence through the framework of her activism.
The incarceration of her uncle (photographer and social activist Shahidul Alam) led to the development of her theories on an ‘Architecture of Disappearance’.
Her activism focuses on Bangladesh and India human rights and artists’ freedom of expression. She campaigned for the release of imprisoned artists, including Dr Alam and Tania Bruguera.
She is the founder of Turbine Bagh, a joint artists’ movement against fascism and the rise of far right nationalism in India and beyond. She has staged protest exhibitions at Tate Modern (Turbine Hall) and her campaigns have been covered in publications including The Observer, Artnet News, Frieze, Hyperallergic and London Evening Standard.
She has appeared on BBC World News, Channel 4 News, Al Jazeera and Sky News.
She is the founder of books4jail, a project sending books from artists, writers, and cultural institutions to prisoners.
She is a visiting critic at Westminster school of Architecture.